Epic Fail Chase wall of shame

[Matt Ashworth]

May 19th, 2013. Set up in Wellington, KS and headed north as the Viola storm fired up and produced. Only ever got to see the wall cloud as it died off before it hit Wichita. Then as the storm moved into Wichita, we decided (against all rationale) to get on I35 (freeway toll road through a big metro...death wish much?)...and after getting some decent video of the approaching storm, as we were right in its path we nearly got swallowed by the hail core as it rolled over the city.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I've had many 'fails' in my chasing experiences mainly because of where I am located. Too many trees and hills and HP storms. But I remember once driving about 300 miles south to get into a small area that had a slight risk. I never saw even one drop of rain that day. I got to see a lot of cows in fields while I drove, though.

 

[Terry Tyler]

Here it was; October, 9 2009. I had been waiting all year for a good storm chase and there I was. The only one in position on a tornado warned storm. I was in the best spot, best terrain, on a storm that had a possible tornado. I was also streaming live.

Then, I decide to change my position from off of HWY45 and go towards it. I ended up on a gravel road and blew a front right tire. Right there that close to the storm and it broke my heart. I was stranded about 100 miles from home and missed the storm.

I got this picture but I think that I missed the heart of it.

Again; same vehicle - It was May, 1 2010 and I was on tornado warned storms in North, MS. Ready for the first wave and then ready to head into AR where other storms were forming.

In the heat of the action; again the tire blew on the front right. I had to call someone to come pick me up 50 miles from home. Really took a huge blow to my pride and just everything after waiting for storms for so long and have a tire go out.

Epic 'fails' I guess you could say.

 

[Bret Hendrickson]

April 21, 2007: Left work around 2 with target of Amarillo. Speeding ticket #1 on Hwy 287. Made it to gas station for bathroom break in Amarillo and heard reports of tornado near Olton. Planned to head south and position for storm near Tulia. Was in a hurry and forgot one thing........gas. Was already on the move south so planned to stop in Happy, TX to fill up my nearly empty tank. Pulled into the one gas stop in town.....closed and didn't take plastic.....doh!

With only a road map in hand and a wx radio, I decided to not risk the drive to Tulia in case there wasn't a working gas pump in town. So, sat in Happy and watched as the crisp updraft tower and beautifully backsheared anvil trecked miles from me. Reports of tornado in Tulia were coming in at that time.

Limped back to Amarillo. Filled up and made my way home. Received ticket #2 on 287 on return trip.

Learned several valuable lessons that day!

 

[StephenHenry]

Our car broke down today at the intersection of Reuter and Radio Roads south of El Reno

We had decided to pay final respects to Tim, Paul, and Carl on the way to our southern OK target today. The feelings of deep sadness I felt on hearing the news last year all came back as we were driving down Reuter Road seeing the year-old tornado damage. We sat at the intersection for a quiet moment of reflection. But when we tried to continue towards our target, the Sentra immediately stumbled and died. Being stuck at one of the darkest locations in storm chase history, realizing your first chase of the year is already a bust, gives plenty of time for deep existential contemplation. After some time, we were finally able to restart the car and limp into town. We are safe tonight and I'm counting our blessings, despite how completely down I feel right now.

Btw, this is probably a topic for another thread, but I feel like the Reuter/Radio intersection is in dire need of some sort of monument or marker. What do people think about this?

 

[Ashley Poling]

I don't think there is more of a worse feeling than missing a large tornado in your backyard while you go chase another storm in the area.

So, the day was April 10, 2009. The location: Murfreesboro, TN. I had just started chasing. One of my coworkers had a meteorology degree and has been chasing for a few years. So this day comes and we head out from work to go chase. I was going to drive and he was going to navigate/run radar. As soon as we get out of the parking lot, NWS issues a tornado warning for the west side of town. We stop for a second to look at radar and there wasn't really anything impressive on radar and were both a little curious as to why they issued the tornado warning. We brushed it off and proceeded south to the next storm approaching in the line of storms. We drive about 45 miles south to Fayetteville, TN where were got to play in some decent size hail. On the way back I get a phone call and was asked if I was okay. I'll be damned...that storm that went through Murfreesboro produced an EF4 tornado AS WE WERE LEAVING TOWN! There was even a tornado emergency issued shortly after the initial tornado warning was posted. I absolutely hate that day. Hate hate hate. Murfreesboro TN Good Friday EF4 Tornado. Lesson learned: look at multiple radar tilts. Tilt 1 looked like nothing. Had we looked at the second tilt, we would have seen the storm and the hook (realized this after we pulled the archived radar data).

 

[Adam Lucio]

I had to scroll back in this thread to see if I posted on it. Turns out I did...and on an interesting date too. Since it has been a few years I will add another story to my wall of shame.

Driving home instead of chasing the Coleridge storm. I had blown all my money and my time off to chase the crap setup on June 14th. Both Danny and I had work at 7am the 18th which meant we couldnt be starting a drive home from NE at 10pm. I sat as far west as we could in IA hoping the storms would pop further east. They didn't. Once it became clear where the storm would go up, and with me going to be arriving home with my last 20 bucks until the next payday I wasnt sure backtracking 90 minutes west was a smart move. I was covering the entire chase trip and it was up to me to get us home.

I wont make that mistake again, nabbing those tornadoes would be worth whatever challenges I would have to face getting home.

 

[Adam R Davis]

I don't think there is more of a worse feeling than missing a large tornado in your backyard while you go chase another storm in the area.

So, the day was April 10, 2009. The location: Murfreesboro, TN. I had just started chasing. One of my coworkers had a meteorology degree and has been chasing for a few years. So this day comes and we head out from work to go chase. I was going to drive and he was going to navigate/run radar. As soon as we get out of the parking lot, NWS issues a tornado warning for the west side of town. We stop for a second to look at radar and there wasn't really anything impressive on radar and were both a little curious as to why they issued the tornado warning. We brushed it off and proceeded south to the next storm approaching in the line of storms. We drive about 45 miles south to Fayetteville, TN where were got to play in some decent size hail. On the way back I get a phone call and was asked if I was okay. I'll be damned...that storm that went through Murfreesboro produced an EF4 tornado AS WE WERE LEAVING TOWN! There was even a tornado emergency issued shortly after the initial tornado warning was posted. I absolutely hate that day. Hate hate hate. Murfreesboro TN Good Friday EF4 Tornado. Lesson learned: look at multiple radar tilts. Tilt 1 looked like nothing. Had we looked at the second tilt, we would have seen the storm and the hook (realized this after we pulled the archived radar data).

I had that happen to me two consecutive years. May 25 2011, and March 02 2012. I was living in Indiana at the time. The first time, it was ignoring my own intuition and listening to a less experienced chaser and following a mesoscale discussion because it was in better terrain. Ended up fleeing a fast moving QLCS with rain wrapped circulations all over the place, instead of seeing the nice, slow moving, highly visible tornadic supercell. Second time was forgetting that early season tornadoes were all about the shear and less so CAPE, especially in the Ohio Valley. Saw a decent supercell that funneled a couple times, but missed the monster that ended up ravaging Henryville and nearby communities. Not that it's the kind of tornado that one is too remiss about not witnessing.

 

[Shane Adams]

I too posted back in 2010 when this thread originally appeared, but my worst bust of all-time happened since so why not pour a little more salt in the wound....

November 7, 2011

I nailed the forecast: Fredrick. However, for some reason I missed a few exits along the way, and decided to just keep going until the next one. This eventually put us in Altus instead of my original target. If we'd gone straight to Fredrick, we'd have nailed the F4 from initiation (like only two chasers I know of did). As it was, we sat in Altus, north of the Fredrick storm as it developed. Closer to us other junky stuff was ongoing between us and the Fredrick storm, so we really couldn't see it. Then another storm west of us near Hollis went tornado-warned. It was all alone, well away from the mess just south of us. I decided to make a play for the Hollis storm, because it was in clear air and we had a direct approach with visuals all the way. We broke west and then north to meet the Hollis storm, just as the storm to our south (buried in other messy storms between it and us) went tornado-warned. I knew at that moment the next choice I made would define the day; I hesitated for about a mile, then decided it made more sense to keep driving towards the storm we could see instead of turning around and driving blindly into a rainy core of a storm we couldn't. That sealed our fate.

The storm we went after looked good for a while, but never produced a tornado, while eventually morphing into a photog's dream. Meanwhile, the storm west of Fredrick began going insane, and we were perfectly-positioned to miss it all, 10-20 miles northwest. I tried to go back and salvage what we could, but anyone who's been in the game long enough knows that backside, NW flank intecept almost always ends in futility and frustration...and today was no exception. Hearing live play by play of multiple tornadoes from a storm we could see (but not see underneath) was excruciating. Towards the end, Bridget caught a brief glimpse of a tornado near the Mountains north of Snyder (while I missed it due to driving) but that was it. I was so furious and devastated, especially when I got a call from Mickey Ptak, who automatically assumed we'd scored like everyone else, saying "Man wasn't today insane??!!" It was the biggest lump I've ever had in my throat to have to tell him "We missed everything." He didn't believe me. Then I had to say it again and tell him I wasn't kidding. Worst moment in my chasing career.

Fall tornadoes are a different kind of delicious, and for this chaser, far more rare than their typical Spring cousins. Nailing the forecast and then botching the chase (complete opposite of my natural skill set) just added hot sauce on top of the salt in the wound. 2011 had been a devastating year for us both chasing-wise and personally, and to have wasted a golden opportunity to right that ship, re-energize us as chasers, and grasp that oh-so-fleeting happiness that only tornadic bliss can forge...that was as bad as it gets. From that moment on, I changed my chasing philosophy: When I pick a target town at home before we leave, we don't stop, we don't deviate, until we get there.

 

[Skip Talbot]

These are my top busts to date. They were demoralizing and tested my will to chase. In each, I missed a significant or photogenic tornado event after putting in a great deal of time and effort. And also in each, the agony of the bust was exquisite and often compounded by other disasters and mishaps.

1. 18 May 2013 - Missed Rozel, KS tornado after chasing via airplane, but was so airsick I didn't even care. One of the worst days of my life.
2. 25 May 2012 - Another aerial chase, we had to leave a string of gorgeous supercells minutes before they produced photogenic tornadoes because we were running low on fuel. It was our big chance to get a tornado from the air that year and we missed it. On the flight home I was so angry I could taste it.
3. 10 May 2010 - Supposed to be the main event on a 10 day tour for which I was a support driver, this was a super hyped high risk event. We missed all the tornadoes in the outbreak, including the Wakita multivortex, wedge, and OKC/Shawnee wedge, and then got to watch all the footage on TWC when we stopped for dinner. The tour went downhill from there and ended early without a tornado.
4. 5 June 2010 - Home state outbreak was forecast in Illinois but I abandoned my target for Iowa. Iowa went to crap early so I started heading home. I watched in despair as Illinois lit up on Spotter Network with report after report of photogenic tornado. Since this event, I generally turn off radar and Spotter Network after a chase so I'm not tortured with what I'm missing. I'd just rather not know.
5. 7 June 2008 - Played this event by the book and thought I had nailed it, bagging three wall clouds at my central Iowa target. An outflow boundary initiated wedgefest 30 miles from my house near Chicago. One of the tornadoes nearly hit my work. I didn't count this as a bust in my log having bagged photogenic supercells at my target, but missing the tornado show made this event sting for a long time and cemented my disdain for Iowa.
6. 4 June 2005 - Grueling marathon haul to Kansas and straight back and missed a beautiful stovepipe tornado near Hiawatha by mere minutes. Got sick from a nasty bug on the overnight drive home.
7. 26 April 2009 - Another demoralizing high risk bust. Our headless snake of a caravan wound up on the wrong storm and we missed a very photogenic stovepipe near Roll, OK. There was a brief funnel that was handed to us as a consolation prize, but I even missed seeing that. I don't stick to caravans as a result of this event now.

 

[John Farley]

I have posted here a couple times before but like others keep adding mistakes nearly every season. So here are a couple more big ones to add to my list:

May 19, 2013 - I was on the supercell that produced the South Haven, KS rope tornado almost from initiation until well after the tornado, but somehow managed never to see the tornado. i was in position to come right up to the storm from the south, and if I had I would almost certainly have seen the tornado, but I was afraid of getting behind and playing catch-up (a mistake I have made many, many times) so instead I took a slightly longer route to try to stay ahead of the storm, and ended up east of the storm (usually not a bad place) where the rain apparently ended up blocking my view of the tornado. For whatever reason, I did not see it.

May 24, 2011 - Similar. I was on the storm that produced the Fairview and Canton, OK tornadoes, but managed to miss both of them. Again, an overreaction to the many times I have fallen behind storms. Rather than charging right to the storm from the east, which probably would have allowed me to see both tornadoes, I instead tried to position farther to the northeast and let the storm come to me. Much like the May 19, 2013 storm, I ended up with rain between me and the tornado, and ended up seeing nothing. I also managed to intercept the storm that produced the tornado near El Reno that day and several others both before and after my intercept between Stillwater and Pawnee - just during one of the times when it was not producing tornadoes. This was a mean HP, so not sure I could have seen much even if it had been tornadic.

The saving grace is that on both of these chase trips, other days made the trip and more than compensated for these epic failures. The day before my South Haven fail I saw the entire lifecycle of the Rozel tornado, and the day after my Oklahoma tribulations I saw at least three tornadoes in Arkansas, including a photogenic one near Greasy Corner that, so far as I know, I was the only chaser to observe.

You can go back earlier in this thread to my post discussing April 19, 2011 in Illinois to find a great example of the kind of mistake I was overcompensating for that led to the two mistakes I describe in this post. I suppose overcompensating for past mistakes has been one of my bigger causes of epic failure.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

2014 was my first year of real chasing as opposed to just local spotting, and I think I managed to fail in just about all the ways listed in this thread. Hearing these stories from some chasers whom I hold in high regard (such as Shane and Skip) eases the pain somewhat.

June 16 - Changed target en route to one that put me 90 minutes further away from the Pilger action than my leaving-the-house one would have, resulting in arriving on the storm just after the EF4 show ended. At least got some lovely consolation shots of the supercell structure as it turned LP and died. Then got treated to the revelations that (A) There had been photogenic tornadoes in eastern Iowa that afternoon much closer to my home, and (B) tornadoes developed overnight in southern Wisconsin, one of which almost hit my apartment and workplace.

June 17 - Cap busted in north-central Iowa and hit the road for home blissfully oblivious to another wedgefest raging back in northeast Nebraska. Should have stayed the night in Sioux City instead of pushing to make Fort Dodge...

June 30 - Was in seemingly good position southeast of Des Moines as SPC upgraded the tornado probs to 15%, but storm mode didn't cooperate. Everything coalesced into a derecho almost instantly and as Skip mentioned in his write-up, it wasn't even photogenic.

July 6 - Drove to La Crosse and eventually decided cloud cover had lingered too long, moseyed south sightseeing along the MS River and was halfway back home to Madison when a supercell went up and dropped a gorgeous tornado near Traer, IA (near where I was on 6/30 too) shortly before sunset. I don't think it was even in any type of watch box.

In fact, the only chases I would consider a success based on the quality of storms on the day were May 12th and 20th. I chased far south-central Wisconsin and north-central Illinois (roughly in a Janesville-Freeport-Rockford triangle) and both events produced numerous wind and hail reports but no tornadoes. Got some photogenic structure both days and got into some minimally-severe hail on the 20th, the beginnings of a storm that went on to produced up to baseball-sized hail across north-central and northeast Illinois.

 

[Verne Carlson]

Here's my top 3:

1. May 31, 2010 - Campo, CO. The week before I had gotten a $700 ticket in Campo and was completely hating the SE CO area and vowed not to go back through that area if I didn't have to. Of course it was easy to talk myself out of the trip down there that day and watched all the tornado reports and could see the towers from my house in Denver.

2. May 18, 2013 - Rozel, KS. Was under the updraft when it formed near Rozel and got suckered north and chased the junk across i-70 which was ugly and dusty but never really tornadoed.

3. June 16 - 18, 2014 - Eastern NE and SD. Talked the management team in Europe to delay their trip to the office until this week. They had wanted to meet the first week in June and of course the first week of June was more likely to be huge than mid June. I missed Pilger and all the great setups that week.

 

[JeremyS]

I don't know if this is a wall of shame post or just bad luck, but here's always the first story that comes to my mind. It was the Kansas tornado outbreak back in 2008 that produced the Quinter tornado among others of course. I had just started chasing in 2007 and didn't have much for equipment. I believe I only had a weather radio and some paper maps. This was a big 2 day outbreak and I chased both days spending the night in Hays KS in between. The first day I got to the area just in time to see an amazing tornado warned storm along I-70 that had insane inflow into that was sucking in dust from the fields for miles. Followed that storm north only to try and make it back to I-70 before another tornado warned storm was heading right at me right at dark. This tornado hit the Wakeeney airport. Luckily I made it back to the interstate in time to go east.
Even though I didn't see anything the first day I was excited about having another day to chase basically in the same area. Woke up early the next morning and went and took pics of the damage at the Wakeeney airport. Storms starting popping mid afternoon and I headed out into rural central Kansas. Unfortunately, I decided to try the gravel roads the day after tons of rain had fallen in the area from the severe storms the day before and I was driving a Pontiac Grand Prix.
I did alright for a while but the roads were getting worse and worse so I tried to make it back to I-70. I thought I found a gravel road to take me back but instead it drove me under the interstate and I ended up on the north side of it. I saw a road heading east from there and attempted to take that road. This road though was basically mud and turned into a "driveway" that led to some farm looking buildings, but no house. Meanwhile to my west and southwest the storm that would produce the Quinter tornado was heading in my general direction.
I attempted to keep moving knowing that if I slowed down enough or stopped I would get stuck and unfortunately the road curved, I had to slow down and then promptly got stuck. I tried for a while to gun my way out of the mud, only getting stuck deeper and deeper and my engine became hotter and hotter. To the west the sky was becoming blacker and blacker, the easterly inflow winds were really starting to howl and there was the constant rumble of thunder. I was beginning to panic. I could see the interstate from where I was at but still had cell phone signal either. I got out of my car looking for anything that could help me get unstuck. First I saw an old farm tractor and actually had the thought that I would start the tractor and hook my car up and pull myself out, even though I have never drivien a tractor in my life. Of course that plan was quickly squashed where there were no keys in the tractor. There was also an old station wagon that looked like it ran and had been used but again there were no keys in it. Finally I see a shed that had a bunch of trellis style fencing leaning up against the side. I had an immediate idea to use the fencing for traction and it was like God himself put the fencing there as the pieces worked like a charm. There were 4 pieces which was perfect as I laid one in front of my car, one behind my car and two in between my tires under my car. The fencing was also the exact perfect width, as wide as my car was. Once I laid the wood fencing down, I got in my car and started rocking it until I got up on the fencing and then had enough traction to start moving and was able to turn around and eventually find a road that led me to the interstate.
My feet and legs were caked in mud as well as my car and you should have seen the look on the guy's face at the local gas station I stopped at as I came trudging in to use his restroom.
At this point I had missed the Quinter tornado. There was one more chance to see a tornado as it headed towards Hays but darkness came, I saw no tornado then or for the whole weekend, and then had to drive the 5 hours home to Omaha. That weekend almost was enough to make me give up on storm chasing!

 

[Matt Ashworth]

Not really a fail but more of a major and unfortunate coincidence that still irks me to no end.

May 28, 2013

I was on a Greyhound bus heading east towards Ohio with a friend. I had just returned home a few days prior from my very first chase which involved a series of bad decisions and mistakes leading to my missing several tornadoes (Rozel and Moore, to name a few) and was still licking my wounds from those busts. Didn't help that the car broke down on my way home and the chase we attempted after it was fixed turned into another bust. Basically that whole week was a massive waste of time.

So I'm on this bus in Kansas traveling along I-70. I'm staring out across the countryside and notice some towers starting to shoot up not far from Salina. I start searching for radar coverage and discover that day was supposed to be a pretty good day to chase, so I keep my eye on these developing storms. Before long I saw a tornado watch for the area. We reach Salina and the sky had begun to darken and the wind was pretty strong despite the storms having just passed to the north of Salina. By this point at least one of them had become tornado warned as well. As we were leaving town I spot some rotation and within a minute a huge wall cloud descended. I tried watching as long as I could but trees, hills, and the fact that we were moving away from the storm meant that I didn't get to see any action.

About an hour after that I start getting texts about a monster wedge just north of Salina, literally just a few miles away from where I was and at about the same time as I was leaving town. When I finally started seeing pictures I almost felt sick. To have been essentially under a storm and to watch it produce a wall cloud but miss the real action because I wasn't in my own vehicle...it was the worst feeling ever. The only consolation I have from that day is the fact that I wasn't out there to chase.